US President Barack Obama
winks while in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington,
April 23, 2013.REUTERS/Larry
Downing

Every organization, from Apple and Google to the US government,
demands different skills and personal qualities in its
leadership.

But research suggests there are two traits that are common to the
majority of successful leaders: extroversion and
conscientiousness.

According to a
meta-analysis led by Timothy Judge, Ph.D., a professor at the
Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame,
extroversion is the best predictor of leadership effectiveness
(typically measured by assessments from subordinates and
supervisors), followed closely by conscientiousness.

Psychologists define extroversion as sociability and enthusiasm,
while conscientiousness refers to your organization and work
ethic.
More recent research has found that conscientiousness is the
only major personality trait that consistently predicts success,
largely because highly conscientious individuals are good at
setting and working toward goals.

The meta-analysis also offers some clues to why extroversion is
so closely related to leadership. When Judge and his co-authors
deconstructed the big personality traits, they found that
dominance and sociability better predicted leadership than
extroversion as a whole (though they caution that few studies
looked at both these components of extroversion at the same
time).

Other studies have found that
sociability helps people inspire and motivate others, while
individuals
high in dominance tend to be perceived as more competent by
their peers.

Judge and his co-authors also broke down the data by different
fields and found that among business leaders, openness to
experience (or intellectual curiosity) was just as important as
extroversion.

Interestingly, the meta-analysis found that both extroversion and
conscientiousness are better predictors of leadership
emergence (or the likelihood of holding a leadership
position) than leadership effectiveness. So if an
introvert does make it to the C-suite, it's entirely possible for
her to be great at the job.

In fact, a
growing body of research challenges the notion that
extroverts make the best leaders and suggests that, in some
cases, introverts make better bosses. That's partly because
they're generally good listeners and tend to be very thoughtful.

Ultimately, none of this research implies that only people with
certain personality traits can make it to — and thrive at — the
top. But knowing that sociability predicts leadership success,
for example, you can try to cultivate your own social skills in
the workplace. You don't need to change your personality to suit
your professional ambitions, but you can certainly work to
develop qualities that you may already have.